i A disappointed Delhi Capitals skipper Rishabh Pant on May 21 said he felt that Tim David had nicked the first delivery he faced, but didn’t go for the review as most of his teammates inside the circle were not convinced, a decision which cost them a place in the IPL play-offs.
Pant’s decision to not review that turned out to be a blunder as David slammed 34 runs off just 11 balls with the help of two boundaries and four sixes to take the game out of DC’s grasp.
“I thought there was something but everyone standing in the circle was not convinced enough. So I was asking should we go up. At the end, I didn’t take the review,” Pant said after DC lost by five wickets to Mumbai Indians in their must-win final league game to exit the IPL.
Pant said the match was very much in their hands but slipped away towards the end.
“I think most of the game we were on top. But on a few occasion when we were on top, we let it slip away from our grasp. That’s one of the things we have been doing throughout the tournament. I think we were not good enough to win this match I guess.”
“...at the same time we could have done better execution, better planning. That’s the only thing and we have been missing a lot throughout the tournament. So we have to learn from our mistakes next season and come back as a strong team again next year,” he said.
Pant said they were 5-7 runs short of what could have been a winning total.
“I think we were 5-7 runs short. We were not short much. We actually really bowled well throughout the tournament but dew came in on the latter half of today’s match and we missed our execution. We didn’t bowl to our planning. It’s hard but at the same time we have to take it on our chin and learn from it.”
MI captain Rohit Sharma said their only aim was to finish on a high after already exiting from the tournament long back.
“I said it at the toss as well, we were here to win the game. I know a couple of teams were watching us keenly but for us it was important to get what we wanted to get out of this game, to make sure that we finish on a high and to take some positives from this last game and try to see where we didn’t do well this season and try to correct those mistakes,” he said.
“Once we lost eight on the trot, it was tough. It’s never easy when you lose games like that. All we wanted to do was to just come out and see where we made mistakes and try to rectify those mistakes. I thought we did pretty much well in the second half of the tournament.
“So a lot of positives came out of the second half, something we can pride ourselves in. We just wanted to finish on a high.”
